The Grandmaster leads Golden Horse nominations

Taiwan’s 50th Golden Horse Awards has announced its nominees with Wong Kar Wai’s The Grandmaster leading the race with 11 nominations including for best feature film and best director.

Hong Kong’s entry to the upcoming Oscars best foreign-language film category, the martial arts film also scored nominations in categories including best leading actor for Tony Leung Chiu Wai, best leading actress for Zhang Ziyi and best cinematography for Philippe Le Sourd.

Celebrating a half century of high-profile awards, Golden Horse covers entries from Taiwan, China, Hong Kong, and other Chinese speaking territories.

With Ang Lee as president of the jury this year, the winners will be announced at a ceremony on Nov 23.

The four other best feature film nominees are Jia Zhang-ke’s A Touch Of Sin, which picked up a total of six nominations including for best director, Anthony Chen’s Cannes Camera d’Or winner Ilo Ilo (Singapore’s Oscar submission) which also picked up six Golden Horse nominations including best new director, Tsai Ming Liang’s Stray Dogs with five nominations including best director and best leading actor for Lee Kang Sheng, and Johnnie To’s Drug War with four nominations including best director.

The only best director nominee that didn’t make it into the best feature film category was Chung Mong-Hong’s Soul, Taiwan’s Oscar submission for best foreign-language picture category. The psychological thriller nevertheless picked up five nominations, including for best leading actor for veteran Jimmy Wang Yu of The One-Armed Swordsman fame.

For the full list of nominations, visit Golden Horse’s website.